Heatwave Grove

The earth is rising up today in a riot of green rebellion

Apple blossoms falling down,

a scented, white pavilion The gardener’s hands are never clean,

for beauty needs the dirt While the bumblebee begins a hum that

makes the silence hurt

Rain is drumming on the tin,

nature’s rhythmic applause Oak leaves like a squirrel’s ear,

defying winter’s laws. The

first lilac blooms and the air becomes a memory

Dandelion fluff is drifting on a wind of ancient chemistry The forest

floor’s a crowded city of the moss and of the fern The

night is a silver garden where the flower moons burn.

It’s the graceful surrender when the tulips drop their petals The clear

and running river where the winter’s burden settles The spiral’s become a

fan now as the fiddleheads unfurl White stars in the grass are

blooming in the middle of the world Stitching the sky together as

the swallows fly at dusk The future’s gold and dusty,

breaking from the pine tree’s husk.

The sun is at its noon today,

an unblinking kind of clarity Ants are pathfinding through the mulch with

a silent solidarity

The house begins to breathe again as the warm wind hits the

screen A world in a single drop of dew upon a leaf

of hosta green The lawn is a sea of clover,

a return to what is soft While the thunderhead is building its

heavy power up aloft.

The turtle on the log is the master of the slow time

Stillness in the center of the motion and the low rhyme Fireflies

are flickering, sparks within the cooling grey

The morning song of birds is resetting every day.

Shadows lengthen on the porch,

the day’s slow and long exhale The dragonfly is hovering above the

water’s veil The smell of cut grass rising,

a sacrifice for the scent While peonies bow to the rain,

heavy with the beauty spent

We’re standing at the threshold,

at the gate of the Great Heat With the rebellion behind us

and the summer at our feet.

The spiral has become a fan.

The world in a single drop.

Bowing

to the weight of

beauty.

The gate is open.

The heat is coming.

Just breathe.